|
Gould was not a tactile or experiential thinker; rather, he dwelt
deeply within the recesses of his own interior world. And in fact,
he insulated himself from the realities of the physical world
by creating his own self-sustaining universe. My wife, Jill, recalled
how she encountered Gould for the first time in 1972, the same
summer she and I met at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont.
On a sunny, hot and cloudless morning, there he stood in cap,
heavy winter coat, galoshes and gloves asking to interview Pablo
Casals -- it was a sight she would never forget!
Gould constructed a series of elegant hypotheses to define the
natural world around him. He approached life with the wonder and
curiosity of a scientist, and in this respect, he reminded me
of the great physicist Richard Feynman. While Feynman sought to
study nature, which guarded its secrets, Gould’s approach was
one step removed. Gould used the natural world as a backdrop to
drive his imagination, yet did not require any proof or evidence
of its actual existence. One of my favourite stories about Gould
occurred when he was on tour in Israel in the 1950s. Disheartened
by the piano in the hall, he drove his car out to the sand dunes
near Tel Aviv and imagined he was playing his boyhood piano in
his cottage on Lake Simcoe. He fixed his gaze on the Mediterranean
and practised for hours -- and that evening performed Beethoven’s
Piano Concerto No. 2 to stunning and powerful effect.
Indeed, Gould exemplified how the mind could transport one to
the outer reaches of creative expression. In his groundbreaking
radio documentary The Idea of North, he explored the romantic
ideal of the North, as a geographic region and as a mindset. The
program consisted of a series of interviews featuring Canadians
living in the arctic and subarctic regions of Canada who were
asked to define the ineffable ideal of what constituted “the North.”
The result was an elaborate, fugal tapestry consisting of interviews
that were edited by Gould himself. Well-known for his fear of
the cold, the reclusive artist ventured no farther north than
Winnipeg and Churchill. “I have no real experience of the North.
I have remained of necessity an outsider,” he admitted. “The North
has remained for me a convenient place to dream about, spin tall
tales about, and in the end avoid.”
Imagined experience is perhaps made richer by the mind’s eye,
and this divide between imagined experience and reality can be
found in the lives of so many of the great artists. Like Ravel,
who infused his works with the bell-like pentatonicism of the
Javanese gamelan orchestra, which he heard for the first time
at the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris, Gould shared a penchant for
exploring new sound worlds. The fact that Ravel never travelled
to the East and that Gould never travelled to the North is perhaps
immaterial. It was “the idea of” these worlds that ignited their
creative imaginations.
Shortly after Gould completed The Idea of North, he was
asked to do a radio documentary about China. He was fascinated
with the idea, but proposed to do the documentary without leaving
Canada. “The prospects for a visit by me to the Orient are nil.”
Yet even his fear of flying could not curb his longing to explore
this vast new territory. He suggested doing a radio essay on the
theme of solitude with China as the backdrop. Not surprisingly,
Gould never went East. Yet he remained devoted to exploring new
frontiers.
Creativity cannot be measured by the boundaries of north, south,
east or west. Gould once defined art as “the gradual, lifelong
construction of a state of wonder and serenity.” He understood
the great joy of being able to transform a pure abstract concept
into a thing of tangible beauty. His work reflects a birth of
sorts, and was a wondrous passport to his mind and spirit.
While we are bereft of Gould’s inimitable artistry, the legacy
of his imagination is a gift we will continue to treasure for
many years to come.
Excerpted
from Glenn Gould by Estate of Glenn Gould Copyright 2002
by Estate of Glenn Gould. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday
Canada, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without
permission in writing from the publisher.
|
|